Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 29th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel: Cultural Policy Co-creation and Smart Dev. (Physical) Author(s) Rudolf Wawrzyniec University of Lodz Lodz Poland Title Perception of customer research from the point of view of managers in public cultural institutions in Poland File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Rudolf Wawrzyniec Abstract Business organizations operating in the market identify target customers, find out their needs and expectations, formulate an offer, distribute it towards their customers and again examine the degree of satisfaction of needs and expectations of target customers. This marketing process is not always accepted by public cultural institutions, which, after all, also compete for the client on the free time market. The author poses the following research questions: • What is the level of the use of marketing research by public cultural institutions in Poland? • How market research is perceived by managers from the public cultural institutions? The main empirical value of the study is a qualitative survey conducted among managers from cultural institutions in the third largest city in Poland - Łódź. 36 in-depth interviews (IDI) were conducted with respondents at the head of museums, theatres, philharmonics, libraries, cultural houses, and galleries. The issue of consumer research was undertaken, the popularity of these practices among the cultural institutions researched and the potential value of the results if these researches to the practices of cultural institution management. The results of this qualitative study show current practice in this area. The author tries to find an answer to the question of what would have to happen in order the directors of cultural institutions are more willing to use tools in the field of marketing research. Yet they allow a better understanding of the cultural audience and give the opportunity to better match the cultural offer to these audiences. At the same time, key problems have been identified limiting the use of broad research of cultural consumers and the use of their results in the process of managing the cultural organization in Poland.
